Supplying applications to mobile devices

ABSTRACT

Applications are supplied to mobile devices. An application template is developed as a hierarchy of nested elements and layout data for a plurality of types of element. An application is generated by applying content data to one or more of the elements to form objects. The objects are supplied to a requesting mobile device, such that each object contains data, an identification of its position within the hierarchy and an identification of its element type. In addition, layout data is supplied to the mobile device for element types corresponding to the supplied object.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, and claims a benefit of priorityunder 35 U.S.C. 120 of the filing date of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/135,432, filed Jun. 9, 2008, entitled “SUPPLYING APPLICATIONS TOMOBILE DEVICES,” which claims priority from British Patent ApplicationNo. GB0711186.7, filed Jun. 9, 2007, now British Patent No. GB2449944,issued Jul. 12, 2012. The entire contents of applications listed in thisparagraph are hereby expressly incorporated by reference for allpurposes.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to supplying applications to mobiledevices.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Over recent years, mobile devices such as mobile telephones and wirelessconnected personal digital systems, etc. have become widely used, withincreasing processing capabilities and larger amounts of data storage.It has therefore become possible for applications to be executed onthese devices, either in the form of passive web pages or in the form ofmore active applications having dynamic content and receiving input fromusers.

The wireless application protocol (WAP) allows content originallygenerated for Internet browsers to be transmitted and displayed atwireless devices. Although the capabilities of wireless devices haveincreased, desktop browsers will continue to provide higher levels offunctionality and display substantially more data than it is possible todisplay on a mobile device. Thus, it is appreciated that mostapplications served using the WAP approach appear less than ideal whenviewed on the mobile device.

As an alternative approach, it is possible to develop bespokeapplications for distribution and use on mobile devices. While thisprovides an attractive option for high-end applications that generatesubstantial revenues, for many other applications the cost of generatingbespoke code cannot be justified within the commercial environment.Consequently, a problem exists in terms of providing high quality mobileapplications at a relatively modest cost.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided amethod of supplying applications to mobile devices, comprising the stepsof developing an application template as a hierarchy of nested elementsand layout data for a plurality of types of element, generating anapplication by applying content data to one or more of the elements toform objects, supplying the objects to a requesting mobile device,wherein each object contains data, an identification of its positionwithin the hierarchy and an identification of its element type, andsupplying layout data to the mobile device for element typescorresponding to supplied objects. In a preferred embodiment, the mobiledevices are mobile telephones.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an environment for the supplying of applications tomobile devices;

FIG. 2 illustrates a workstation at an offline system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 illustrates an application in development at the workstationshown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 shows an application template;

FIG. 5 details the online system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 illustrates a mobile device shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 details the mobile device shown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 illustrates the contents of the memory shown in FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 details steps carried out during operation of the mobile deviceshown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 10 details steps carried out during FIG. 9 to receive and displayan application;

FIG. 11 details steps carried out during FIG. 10 to process receiveddata;

FIG. 12 details the application server shown in FIG. 5;

FIG. 13 illustrates the contents of a memory shown in FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 details steps carried out by the server shown in FIG. 12 toservice a request from a client;

FIG. 15 details steps carried out during FIG. 14 to create objects;

FIG. 16 details steps carried out during FIG. 15 to translate elementsin a document;

FIG. 17 details steps carried out during FIG. 14 to send data to aclient; and

FIG. 18 illustrates the mobile device shown in FIG. 6 having receivedand displayed an application.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

FIG. 1

An environment for the supplying of applications to mobile devices isillustrated in FIG. 1. At an offline system 101 applications for mobiledevices are developed. These applications provide data to browsingmobile devices in a form that is compatible with the attributes of themobile devices. The present applicant has appreciated that a demandexists for high quality mobile applications that can be developed at amodest cost. The preferred embodiment therefore represents an efficientprocedure for the development of mobile applications. Consequently, itis anticipated that these applications would appear relativelyuser-friendly to mobile users and thereby increase the frequency withwhich the applications are invoked, thereby often increasing providerrevenue. Having developed the mobile applications at the offline system,the applications themselves are conveyed to an online system 102, asillustrated by arrow 103. At the online system 102 a request(represented by channel 104) is conveyed from a mobile device 105 to theonline system. At the online system 102 the application is assembled andthen returned back to the mobile device 105, as represented by channel106. In the preferred embodiment, the assembling process takes place atthe online system 102 fundamentally for two reasons. Firstly, theparticular data being conveyed may be undergoing an updating process ona regular basis. Thus, for example, an application may be providingcurrent news stories and clearly these will change over the course of aday. Secondly, it is also appreciated that the many of the mobiledevices will have different operating characteristics and as such theapplication supplied to them must be configured so as to optimize theavailable functionality. Thus, for example, it would be undesirable toprovide all applications in a substantially similar fashion, satisfyingonly the requirements of the lowest common denominator.

FIG. 2

A workstation at offline system 101 is illustrated in FIG. 2. Anoperative refers to a plan 201 of how the application is proposed tolook when viewed on a mobile device. The present preferred embodimentprovides a WYSIWYG environment in which it is possible for the operativeto construct the application, in accordance with the plan 201. As theapplication is developed it is viewed on a display unit 202. Displayunit receives video input signals from a computer system 203, executingcode in accordance with the present embodiment. Input signals to theprocessing system 203 are received from a mouse 204 and a keyboard 205.

FIG. 3

The programmed environment of the present preferred embodiment providesfor the development of an application template 301 defined as ahierarchy of nested elements. At its highest level, there is provided apage container 302. Further elements may be nested within the pagecontainer and the nested container may itself contain further nestedcontainers. This nesting process may continue until a final level ofnesting is reached and a particular type of element is selected,referred to herein as an block, notifying the process to the effect thatno further degrees of nesting are to occur. The final level of nestingwould then contain slots (although slots may exist in other containers)in to which specific items of data, text and graphics, etc. are thensubsequently inserted.

Thus, for example, page container 302 contains containers 303 and 304and block 305. Block contains slots 306 and 307. Container 303 containsfour blocks 308, 309, 310 and 311, each of which contains two slots,such as slots 312 and 313 contained in atomic block 308. Container 304contains blocks 314 and 315 and slots 316 and 317, and block 314contains slots 318 and 319.

Each element has a layout associated with it. Thus, for example, pagecontainer 302 has a vertical flow layout, meaning that atomic block 305,container 303 and container 304 are vertically adjacent to each other.The sizes of the block and containers are specified, either in absolutevalues or relative values. Container 305 has a horizontal flow layout,meaning that the slots 306 and 307 are horizontally adjacent. Each ofthe atomic blocks 308 to 311 has the same vertical flow layout. Layoutscan also be specified as tables, such as container 304, and in otherways. Each element also has a style associated with it. Thus, althoughatomic blocks 308 to 311 appear to have the same layout, they may usedifferent colors, fonts and so on. The combination of layout and styleis called the element type.

The operative may produce many pages within the application, each havingnested elements as shown in FIG. 3. Having assembled the nested elementswithin the WYSIWYG environment, an operation is selected to confirm thatthe development process is complete and as such the system compiles anapplication template.

FIG. 4

This application template is shown in FIG. 4. The template 401 includesthree parts, the application definition 402, content integration schemas403 and translation hints 404. Application definition 402 includes, foreach page in the application, layout data for each of the containertypes used, indicating each type's layout and styles. Thus, for example,the atomic blocks 308 and 309 may each be of the same type and similarlyblocks 310 and 311 may also be of the same types. This means that thesame layouts and styles will be applied to them. Container types mayalso be repeated across pages in the application, as for example acontainer having the same type as container 305 may appear at the top ofevery page, although it may contain different information. Further, ifany text or graphics never changes it may be hardwired in to theapplication definition. For example, the definition of the containertype of container 305 may indicate that the same image is always toappear in slot 307.

Similarly, there is a content integration schema 403 generated for eachof the pages in the application. Each of the containers and slots withinthe application are named to allow the easy development of theapplication. Each of schemas 403 is an XML content schema to which anyXML document for use within the application must conform. For eachcontainer and slot, it identifies the element type as a page container,a nested container, a block or a slot and also sets constraints on it,for example the number of times it may occur. It also specifies elementsthat may be contained within it, although these do not have to occur ina conforming XML document. The schema for a page may include differentinformation depending on whether the display is portrait or landscape orconstrained in some other way.

Translation hints 404 provide a bridge between the applicationdefinition 402 and the content integration schemas 403. For example,application definition 402 may indicate that block 305 contains slot0and slot1 in a horizontal flow. However, XML document and contentintegration schema 403 for that page will refer to these slots by name,for example as “bannername” and “bannerimage” respectively. Translationhints 404 will indicate that when “bannername” occurs in this block inthis page it is in fact slot0, and so on. Although the entireapplication could be compiled as container0, container1, block0, slot0and so on, thus removing the need for translation hints 404, this wouldmake it very user-unfriendly and it would be difficult to produceconforming XML documents.

FIG. 5

The online system 102 is further detailed in FIG. 5. The applicationtemplate 401 resides within application repository 501. This also storesuser and device profiles for the users of online system 102. The deviceprofiles indicate, in particular, the capabilities of a device such asmobile device 105, for example the resolution of its screen, whether itis portrait or landscape, its processing ability and so on.

Application server 503 provides requesting devices with applications,which are supplied in the form of objects 504 and layouts 505. Eachobject corresponds to an element within a page, and each layoutcorresponds to the layout of that element type as contained inapplication definition 402. The layout for each type is sent only onceand a mobile device 105 will cache these for reuse.

Content data 506 is provided to application server 503 by, in thisexample, a web server 507. Any server capable of providing the requireddata can be used. Data 506 is provided in the form of an XML documentthat conforms to the content integration schemas 403 for thatapplication. These documents can be produced in an automated way fromraw data by an XML generator. Naming the elements of the applicationmakes it much easier for a programmer to develop this converter whengiven the content integration schemas 403.

Upon receipt of a request 104 from a mobile device 105, the applicationserver retrieves the relevant profiles 502 and application template 401from application repository 501. On a page-by-page basis, it retrievesdata 506 from web server 507. It combines the data with the applicationtemplate, modified by the profiles, to produce the application 106 thatis sent to device 105 in the form of objects 504 and layouts 505.

FIG. 6

FIG. 6 shows mobile device 105, which in this example is a personaldigital assistant (PDA). It has a screen 601 and input buttons 602, suchas navigation buttons 603. The navigation buttons allow up, down, leftand right movement through an application and provide considerably lessfunctionality than the mouse which would typically be used with astandard webpage displayed on a computer. When an application isdisplayed on screen 601, the navigation buttons 603 are used to movefrom element to element. The way in which the movement proceeds isdefined at the development stage, but typically the user may move to acontainer and then drill down within that container until he reaches ablock, which is the smallest element that can receive focus. Slotscannot receive focus. Thus a block, in addition to containing data, mayalso provide an action which can be accessed by pressing the enter orselect button 604. The action may be a link to another page, which wouldresult in device 105 sending another request for a page to online system102, or some other kind of action such as send an SMS or email message,update user details, make a transaction such as a purchase, exit theapplication and so on.

Given the limited maneuvering capability of navigation buttons 603, thenesting of the elements of an application provides a much easier way tomove about, so that the user does not have to go through every elementon the page to reach the desired one, but can move through thehigher-level containers first before drilling down to the requiredelement in order to perform an action.

FIG. 7

FIG. 7 details mobile device 105 which in this example is a PDA. Itincludes a CPU 701 with a clock speed of 400 megahertz (MHz) with memory702 being provided by 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM. 256MB of nonvolatileFLASH memory 703 is provided for program and data storage. Liquidcrystal display 601 is used to display information to the user.Input/output 705 processes the input of the keys and buttons 602 whileaudio input/output 706 provides a microphone and speaker interface foruse with the telephone facility. Universal Serial Bus (USB) input/output707 is used to connect the PDA to another computer, or to the Internet110 via a wired connection. GPRS/WiFi connection 708 and GSM connection709 enable the PDA to connect to wireless networks, while Ethernet card710 enables it to connect to a wired network, for example via a dockingstation on a computer.

FIG. 8

FIG. 8 illustrates the contents of memory 702 of device 105. Anoperating system 801 provides overall functionality for the device andapplication browser 802 communicates with online system 102 to list andobtain available applications. Application 803 is currently beingdownloaded and displayed on a page-by-page basis from application server503. More than one application can be accessed at one time andapplication browser 802 provides functionality to switch between them.

Memory 702 also contains application data 804 used by application 803,such as undisplayed content data or media data and cached layout data,and other data 805 is used by operating system 801 and applicationbrowser 802.

FIG. 9

FIG. 9 details steps carried out during the operation of mobile device105. At step 901 the device is switched on and at step 902 the operatingsystem 801 is loaded, while at step 903 application browser 802 isloaded. At step 904 the application browser connects to applicationserver 503 and the user selects an application he wishes to view at step905, for example by using a bookmark or selecting from a list.

At step 906 the application is received and displayed on a page-by-pagebasis. Thus the device is first delivered the home page of theapplication and any further pages are delivered as the user browses tothem. Alternatively, pages that the user may be expected to require canbe delivered and cached. At step 907 all programs are exited before thedevice is switched off at step 908.

FIG. 10

FIG. 10 details step 905 at which the mobile device 105 receives anapplication from application server 503 and displays it on LCD screen601. At step 1001 a page of the application is requested, which in thefirst instance is the home page. At step 1002 data relating to this pageis received and at step 1003 it is processed so that the page can bedisplayed at step 1004. At step 1005 a question is asked as to whetherthe user has selected a block that is a link to another page and if thisquestion is answered in the affirmative control is returned to step 1001and the next page is requested. When this page is displayed the previouspage is held in memory so that it can be easily reloaded if required.

If the question asked at step 1005 is answered in the negative, afurther question is asked at step 1006 as to whether the user hasselected some other kind of action block. If this question is answeredin the affirmative then the action is performed at step 1007 beforecontrol is returned to step 1005 to await a further selection by theuse. If it is answered in the negative then the user has requested toexit the application and this occurs at step 1008. The user may at anytime switch between applications running on application browser 802without exiting them, subject to memory restrictions on the device.

FIG. 11

FIG. 11 details step 1003 at which received data is processed so that apage can be displayed. At step 1101 a question is asked as to whetherthe received data is a layout and if this question is answered in theaffirmative the layout is stored in memory to be used as appropriate. Ifthe question is answered in the negative then a question is asked atstep 1103 as to whether the data is an object. If this question isanswered in the negative then the data is some other data relating tothe application and this is processed at 1104. Alternatively, if thequestion is answered in the affirmative, a further question is asked atstep 1105 as to whether the object indicates a plug-in. Plug-ins areprocessed separately from other items on the page and once they havebeen positioned within a container all their content, layout and styleinformation is delivered on a side feed directly from the plug-in'slocation, and so if this question is answered in the affirmative theplug-in is requested at step 1106.

If the question is answered in the negative then the object is acontainer or block, and its layout type is identified at step 1107. Thelayout data will be stored in memory since it will either have been sentwith this object or sent with a previous object that has the same layoutand style. Thus at step 1108 the received object is formatted accordingto the correct layout data and placed in the page. A question is thenasked at step 1109 as to whether more data has been received and if thisquestion is answered in the affirmative control is returned to step 1101and it is processed. Alternatively, the page is complete and step 1003terminates.

FIG. 12

FIG. 12 shows application server 503. Application repository 501 issimilar. It comprises two parallel central processing units (CPUs) 1201and 1202 having a clock frequency of 3 GHz, a main memory 1203comprising 4 GB of dynamic RAM and local storage 1204 provided by a 20Gb-disk array. A CDROM disk drive 1205 allows instructions to be loadedonto local storage 1204 from a CD-ROM 1206. A first Gigabit Ethernetcard 1207 facilitates intranet connection, and can also be used forinstallation of instructions. A second Gigabit Ethernet card 1208provides a connection to Internet 108.

FIG. 13

The contents of main memory 1203 are illustrated in FIG. 12. Operatingsystem 1301 provides operating system instructions for common systemtasks and device abstraction. In this example, a Windows® serveroperating system is used, but another system providing similarfunctionality could be used. Content serving applications 1302 includeinstructions for delivering content to terminals, updating personaldetails, making transactions, and so on, while content acquisitionsystem 1303 creates applications by combining application templates withprofiles, and then combining content data with the applicationtemplates. Data 1304 includes session data for each user, bufferedmessages, and other data used by operating system 1301, content servingapplication 1302 and content acquisition system 1303.

FIG. 14

FIG. 14 details steps carried out by application server 505 to service arequest for an application from a client. At step 1401 a request isreceived from a mobile device such as device 105. It should already belogged on to the server as a client and thus at step 1402 the user anddevice profiles can be loaded from the application repository 501, alongwith the application template 401, comprising the application definition402, the content integration schemas 403 and the translation hints 404.At step 1403 the document for the requested page, which in the firstinstance is the application's home page, is retrieved from web server507 and at step 1404 all of these are combined to create objects. Atstep 1405 the objects and relevant and layout data are sent to theclient for processing and display.

At step 1406 a question is asked as to whether the user has requestedanother page and if this question is answered in the affirmative controlis returned to step 1403 and the relevant page document is retrievedfrom web server 407, if it has not been already, since some anticipationof the client's requests may be carried out. If the question is answeredin the negative then at step 1407 a further question is asked as towhether the user has requested some other action and if this question isanswered in the affirmative the action is performed at step 1408, beforethe process returns to step 1406 to wait for another request.Alternatively, the client exits the application at step 1409.

FIG. 15

FIG. 15 details step 1404 at which objects are created. This step iscarried out by the content acquisition server 1303. At step 1601 thecontent integration schema for the page document is identified from thedocument and opened. At step 1502 the first element in the document isselected and at step 1503 this is translated using the contentintegration schema and the translation hints 404. At step 1504 aquestion is asked as to whether there is another element in the documentand if this question is answered in the affirmative control is returnedto step 1502 and the next element is selected.

Alternatively, the question is answered in the negative and thetranslated document is processed together with the content integrationschema to produce a document object model. Finally, at step 1506, therelevant application definition for the page is identified in order tosupply layout and style information to the client.

FIG. 16

FIG. 16 details step 1503 at which the text in an element in a pagedocument is translated. At step 1601 the first child of the element isselected and at step 1602 the content integration schema is read todetermine whether the child is a container, a block, a plug-in or aslot. At step 1603 the position reference of this child within theelement is identified using translation hints 404 and at step 1604 theincidences of the name of the child within the element in the documentare replaced with this position reference. For example, the positionreference may be slot0. Once the name of the child is replaced withslot0, the application definition for the page will then give theinformation that slot0 is positioned at the top left hand of theelement.

At step 1605 a question is asked as to whether the element has anotherchild and if this question is answered in the affirmative control isreturned to step 1601. Alternatively, it is answered in the negative andstep 1503 is concluded.

FIG. 17

FIG. 17 details step 1405 at which the objects and their layouts aresent to the client. At step 1701 the first object to be sent is selectedand at step 1702 a question is asked as to whether the client alreadyhas the layout for that type of element. For example, the element mighthave a layout named “mainstory2” and if an object representing anelement that also has that layout has already been sent to the clientthen the layout will not be sent again. Thus, if the question asked atstep 1702 is answered in the negative, then the layout is sent at step1703, whereas this step is skipped if it is answered in the affirmative.At step 1704 the object itself is sent and at step 1705 a question isasked as to whether there is another object to be sent. If this questionis answered in the affirmative control is returned to step 1701 while ifit is answered in the negative step 1405 is concluded and the whole pagehas been sent to the client.

FIG. 18

FIG. 18 shows mobile device 105 displaying the application that wasbeing designed in FIG. 2, having requested and received it fromapplication server 503. The home page 1802 of the application 1801 isshown. It can be seen that this application is a news application and itcarries at the top a banner 1803 with the application's name. Below thatat 1804 are four buttons indicating sub-categories of news and belowthat at 1805 is a main story, including an image 1806 and a “more”button at 1807. It can be seen on comparison with FIG. 13 that thebanner corresponds with block 306, the sub-category buttons correspondwith blocks 308 to 311, the main story corresponds to container 304, andso on. However, it may be noted that the page size shown in FIG. 3 islarger than the available display of LCD 601, and so, in accordance withthe device profile, content acquisition server 803 has generated atemplate that is slightly smaller than the page shown in FIG. 3 but fitson the device 105. This has been achieved by removing one of the slotsfrom each of blocks 308 to 311 and reducing the amount of spaceavailable to block 304.

The resulting document template has been combined with data from webserver 507, including the day's main news story, and delivered to thedevice.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: requesting, by amobile device having a processor, a memory, and a display screen, anapplication from a server computer over a network connection; receiving,by the mobile device, objects for a page of the application from theserver computer, the objects representing a hierarchy of nested elementswithin the page of the application, wherein each object of the objectscorresponds to an element within the page of the application andcontains: data for the page of the application, an identification of itsposition within the hierarchy of nested elements within the page of theapplication, and an identification of its element type; receiving, bythe mobile device, the layout data for the element types correspondingto the objects for the page of the application received from the servercomputer, wherein the layout data contains layouts, each layout of thelayouts corresponding to an element type of the element types;processing, by the mobile device, the objects according to the layoutdata for the element types corresponding to the objects, processing ofthe objects and the layout data for the page of the applicationincludes: determining, by the mobile device for each object of theobjects, an element type based on the identification of element typecontained in the each object and a layout type corresponding to theelement type for the each object; formatting the each object accordingto the layout type for the each object; and placing the each object ofthe objects in accordance with the identification of its position withinthe hierarchy of nested elements to produce the page of the application;and displaying, by the mobile device, the page of the application on thedisplay screen, the page of the application displayed on the displayscreen independently of network connectivity of the mobile device. 2.The method according to claim 1, wherein the hierarchy of nestedelements includes a page container, representing a highest level ofnesting in the hierarchy.
 3. The method according to claim 1, whereinthe hierarchy of nested elements includes a block, representing a finallevel of nesting in the hierarchy.
 4. The method according to claim 3,wherein the final level of nesting in the hierarchy contains at leastone slot, in to which content is inserted and displayed via theapplication on the mobile device.
 5. The method according to claim 1,wherein the layout data defines layout and styles for each containertype used in the application.
 6. The method according to claim 1,further comprising: determining, by the mobile device, whether an objectreceived from the server computer indicates a plug-in.
 7. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein an object received from the servercomputer indicates a plug-in, the method further comprising: requesting,by the mobile device, content, layout, and style information for theplug-in from a feed source separate from the server computer.
 8. Amobile device, comprising: a processor; a memory storing instructions;and a display screen, wherein the instructions when executed by theprocessor cause the mobile device to: request an application from aserver computer over a network connection; receive objects for a page ofthe application from the server computer, the objects representing ahierarchy of nested elements within the page of the application, whereineach object of the objects corresponds to an element within the page ofthe application and contains: data for the page of the application, anidentification of its position within the hierarchy of nested elementswithin the page of the application, and an identification of its elementtype; receive the layout data for the element types corresponding to theobjects for the page of the application received from the servercomputer, wherein the layout data contains layouts, each layout of thelayouts corresponding to an element type of the element types; processthe objects according to the layout data for the element typescorresponding to the objects, wherein processing of the objects and thelayout data for the page of the application includes: determining, bythe mobile device for each object of the objects, an element type basedon the identification of element type contained in the each object and alayout type corresponding to the element type for the each object;formatting the each object according to the layout type for the eachobject; and placing the each object of the objects in accordance withthe identification of its position within the hierarchy of nestedelements to produce the page of the application; and display the page ofthe application on the display screen, the page of the applicationdisplayed on the display screen independently of network connectivity ofthe mobile device.
 9. The mobile device of claim 8, wherein thehierarchy of nested elements includes a page container, representing ahighest level of nesting in the hierarchy.
 10. The mobile device ofclaim 8, wherein the hierarchy of nested elements includes a block,representing a final level of nesting in the hierarchy.
 11. The mobiledevice of claim 10, wherein the final level of nesting in the hierarchycontains at least one slot, in to which content is inserted anddisplayed via the application on the mobile device.
 12. The mobiledevice of claim 8, wherein the layout data defines layout and styles foreach container type used in the application.
 13. The mobile device ofclaim 8, wherein the instructions when executed by the processor furthercause the mobile device to determine whether an object received from theserver computer indicates a plug-in.
 14. The mobile device according toclaim 8, wherein an object received from the server computer indicates aplug-in and wherein the instructions when executed by the processorfurther cause the mobile device to request content, layout, and styleinformation for the plug-in from a feed source separate from the servercomputer.
 15. A computer program product having at least onenon-transitory computer readable medium storing instructionstranslatable by a processor to cause a mobile device to perform:requesting an application from a server computer over a networkconnection; receiving objects for a page of the application from theserver computer, the objects representing a hierarchy of nested elementswithin the page of the application, wherein each object of the objectscorresponds to an element within the page of the application andcontains: data for the page of the application, an identification of itsposition within the hierarchy of nested elements within the page of theapplication, and an identification of its element type; receiving thelayout data for the element types corresponding to the objects for thepage of the application received from the server computer, wherein thelayout data contains layouts, each layout of the layouts correspondingto an element type of the element types; processing the objectsaccording to the layout data for the element types corresponding to theobjects, wherein processing of the objects and the layout data for thepage of the application includes: determining, by the mobile device foreach object of the objects, an element type based on the identificationof element type contained in the each object and a layout typecorresponding to the element type for the each object; formatting theeach object according to the layout type for the each object; andplacing the each object of the objects in accordance with theidentification of its position within the hierarchy of nested elementsto produce the page of the application; and displaying the page of theapplication on a display screen, the page of the application displayedon the display screen independently of network connectivity of themobile device.
 16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein thehierarchy of nested elements includes a page container, representing ahighest level of nesting in the hierarchy.
 17. The computer programproduct of claim 15, wherein the hierarchy of nested elements includes ablock, representing a final level of nesting in the hierarchy, andwherein the final level of nesting in the hierarchy contains at leastone slot, in to which content is inserted and displayed via theapplication on the mobile device.
 18. The computer program product ofclaim 15, wherein the layout data defines layout and styles for eachcontainer type used in the application.
 19. The computer program productof claim 15, wherein the instructions are further translatable by theprocessor to cause the mobile device to perform: determining whether anobject received from the server computer indicates a plug-in.
 20. Thecomputer program product of claim 15, wherein an object received fromthe server computer indicates a plug-in and wherein the instructions arefurther translatable by the processor to cause the mobile device toperform: requesting content, layout, and style information for theplug-in from a feed source separate from the server computer.